Male/female LAC acceptance rate differentials

College Search & Selection
21

<p>The whole concept of “rejecting” applicants at places like Swarthmore is misguided. The applicant pools are so strong that it’s really not a case of “missing the cut”. Instead, a better conceptual model is to think in terms of the applicants who have presented something that makes them stand out. Think of an affirmative decision to accept someone rather than a decision to reject someone else.</p>

<p>Then, break the applicant pool down into different stack of applicants. To some degree guys are competing to stand out among the guy applicants. African Americans to stand out in the pile of African American applicants and so on and so forth.</p>

<p>There is little doubt in my mind that it is easier to stand out in the guy pile than the girl pile. It’s just a numbers thing. Part of it is that the gender balance is so skewed female in minority groups (for many reasons), This means that colleges like Swarthmore have go male heavy among white applicants to get near 50/50.</p>

22

<p>^ I think the overall make-up of male/female applicant pools is vital to determining whether there are different “standards.” Since this theoretical standard doesn’t actually exist, even within admissions, we can only infer it by examining how “deep” into each pool the admitted students reach. I am making the somewhat-of-a-leap assumption that Swarthmore’s m/f applicant pools don’t differ significantly in statistical distribution; I’ve seen no data that suggests otherwise. Since there is no explicit cutoff point, there is no possible way to find out whether “the 503rd female was in fact more qualified than the 461st male,” so one must approach the issue from a different angle.</p>

23

<p>Therefore, if the male applicant pool is NOT stronger than the female applicant pool, and a higher percentage of the male applicant pool is admitted, it follows that the admitted male applicants will be overall weaker than the admitted female applicants. = Keil.</p>

<p>I dont want to get too granular in the analysis and I havent examined the specific data. But yes, in general, I believe that is the case. We can ascribe all sorts of granular statistics and methodologies in admissions, but the fact of the matter is, its often much less a science and much more an art…a quirky art at that. Colleges will make all sorts of excuses as to why they admit or deny certain applicants. For everyone they say “you didnt have a 1450 SAT” you can find 10 students in the class who got a 1350. </p>

<p>I dont know if male applicants have lower stats or not. I just know that the pool of male applicants is shrinking overall and the pool of female applicants has exploded to new highs, making it harder for women to get in, unless they are URM’s. (black or hispanic). Again, some schools are strict about seeking a 50/50 parity in gender. Some are willing to accept a higher ratio. </p>

<p>The dropout rate for males is also much higher, for some reason.</p>

24

<p>As a practical matter, it is what it is. I think it is very important for female applicant to undersand that they face a tougher challenge than the overall acceptance rate may suggest. Build a college list accordingly.= interested dad.</p>

<p>Precisely my point, Dad. Yep.</p>

25

<p>

Sorry to sound negative, but if you are pursuing post-secondary education, you should be able to calculate the percentage by which one number is larger or smaller than another number. You don’t need a background in statistics; the mathematics of percentages only involve simple arithmetic, and are normally taught at the junior high school level.</p>

<p>Some years ago, LACs were very concerned about deteriorating writing skills. Many schools established some form of writing requirement, and set up “Writing Centers”. Now there is growing concern about “quantitative literacy”, and schools are setting up “Quantitative Reasoning Centers”. </p>

<p>At [url=<a href=“http://m.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/13/smith]Smith[/url”>http://m.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/13/smith]Smith[/url</a>], for example, there has been serious debate about the possible need for a quantitative reasoning requirement, despite the school’s traditional open curriculum. Some Smith alumnae even report that:

Turns out that this is true.</p>

26

<p>Keil, as you say, your assumption on m/f applicant distribution is somewhat a “leap”, and I wouldn’t base a provocative conclusion on it without some affirmative evidence. You might disagree. I know that at my kids’ high school, the m/f applicant distribution is not the same as it concerns GPA, class rank, and SAT scores. I don’t know about any national trends, and I especially don’t know what it would be at a highly selective place like Swarthmore. Again, the data, if we knew it, might prove you right, but at this point I don’t know. Let’s just say I choose to have a healthy respect for what I don’t know!</p>

<p>I think interestedad probably gave a good description of how admissions work in the real world, and I agree that due to numbers it is probably more difficult for female applicants to “stand out” from the “girl pile.” And I guess that the fact that 502 girls and only 461 boys were admitted confirms that there were more “stand out” girl apps than boys in the overall pool. But I think it would take another big “leap” to conclude that, as a group, the 502 girls selected were stronger than the 461 boys, or that there were unselected girls who were stronger than the accepted boys. Only a direct comparison of the applications could tell me that.</p>

<p>I-dad, I don’t follow what you say about “the gender balance is so scewed female in minority groups.” Do you mean there are more female URM applicants than male URM?</p>

27

<p>Corbett - It’s not the math that sticks me, but the logic. Ironically I do extremely well in math courses; but I’m much better at algebraically simplifying calculus equations than doing SAT I math problems. Practical math is not my strong suit; I can do the math, but not necessarily WHAT math to do. In this particular case, I believe I memorized the formula in studying for the SATs but have partially forgotten it and thus have no confidence in being correct. To find the percentage by which X is greater/lesser than Y, is it X/Y or Y/X? Or something else?</p>

<p>Contrary to your beliefs, I don’t think my poor math reasoning skills make me unfit for post-secondary education. For everyday life? Oh yes. :slight_smile: [/English major]</p>

<p>sunmachine - My leap is based partially on the anecdotal evidence of a Kenyon admissions dean apologizing to all of the girls she’s rejected over the years, with the implication that they would otherwise have been accepted under a gender-neutral standard.</p>

28

<p>My D1 scored a low 600’s on the SAT math section. Its not her strength. CR and Writing? 760. I believe in the left brain and right brain differences. Its patently RIDICULOUS schools expect kids to be perfect in both sections and strong on both. She did just fine in math classes and college core requirements…and once done, said, “never again…I’m not an engineer or computer geek…” </p>

<p>Focus on what you are good at. Do your best in everything else and move on.</p>

<p>Kenyon is particularly strong in English, by the way. But yes, they reject women all the time because of the ‘sheer number of applications’ . </p>

<p>Don’t try to overanalyze admissions. You can’t even rationalize most of what they do. There are stories every year at every school…“how did YOU get in?” “I can’t believe they waitlisted YOU!” Its a capricious and sometimes arbitrary and very quirky process. They aren’t even consistent on the days they review applications. If you get reviewed on Monday you might get in, but on Tuesday maybe not. Forgettaboutit!</p>

<p>You can’t “game” the system. Make your applications, reach-match-safety and cross your fingers. Make sure ALL your applications are to schools where you can be happy and thrive. Embrace your match and safety schools. If a reach takes you, congrats. Otherwise, move on.</p>

<p>You are the person you are inside irrespective of where you go to college. Its an important step in your life. But once you move in and get started, all this will seem so silly and irrelevant. (it is!) Unless of course, you obsess about it while you are at some school and then live this transferitis nightmare making everyone else miserable too. </p>

<p>Kids who are at school with my D1 went through this…some had transferitis and 90% stayed. Those that stayed are happy and thriving (Dean’s List!). </p>

<p>Whether its Scripps, UDel, Kenyon, Swarthmore, Northwestern…name a school…you are still the same person and will be fine. Enjoy life. Be grateful for what you have and who accepts you. And don’t hang out with status and prestige obsessed people. In my view, they are superficial and a real downer. Not “real friends.”</p>

29

<p>Corbett, now that you’ve flamed Keil for not doing the analysis that you suggested, should we interpret your lack of provision of that same analysis as evidence that you need remedial stats work? Or is it just that you’d rather flame someone than provide useful information?</p>

<p>Kei</p>

<p>P.S. Not that there’s anything wrong with that :-)</p>

30

<p>Keil, I think you’re gonna stand out regardless of which pile they put your application in; years from now, we can all say, “I knew her when…” :)</p>

31

<p>

Neither interpretation is accurate. In fact, my hope was that the OP (or other interested parties) would be challenged to play with the numbers and to figure out for themselves how percent differences are calculated. Or at least to consider the problem as an exercise in Internet research. </p>

<p>If these approaches seem unrealistically difficult, then yes, I can simply post the formula for calculating the percent difference between two numbers. It’s just not in the LAC spirit to do it that way; one of the traditional goals of liberal arts colleges is to prepare students to think and learn on their own.</p>

32

<p>Omg. I am really suprised at the Pomona stats. I had no idea it was required 50-50 by charter. </p>

<p>So if I’m a prospective political science major, then I’ll probably have a better chance at CMC anyways?</p>

33

<p>

In absolute terms, this seems much larger than the Pomona differential, at only 7.6%. </p>

<p>But in relative terms, the schools both discriminate in favor of men to nearly the same degree. At Pomona, the acceptance rate for men is about 60% higher than the acceptance rate for women; at Vassar, the figure is about 62%.</p>

<p>The absolute difference between male/female acceptance rates is over 14% at William and Mary (based on 2008-09 CDS). However, it’s only about 50% in relative terms.</p>

34

<p>^^^ I was hoping, rather, that you would contribute information to this thread and do your own calculations (I’ve already done the time-consuming part, collecting CDS data). It’s also annoying to fix Excel formatting, which doesn’t copy neatly to plain-text columns. Contrary to popular belief, I do have homework and a social life outside CC. ;)</p>

<p>odyssey - As a female polysci major, you definitely have a better shot at CMC than Pomona. CMC is actually majority-male in enrollment. I’m 95% sure about Pomona’s charter requirement, but haven’t bothered to look up an official source.</p>

<p>Statistically, what causes the discrepancy between absolute and relative differentials?</p>

35

<p>Corbett-</p>

<p>Thanks for the professorial guidance. </p>

<p>But this is not an LAC; it’s a message board where people who post their opinions also ocassionaly do work to help the discussion along. </p>

<p>It’s not “unrealistically difficult” to do what you suggest; it’s that many of us have other things we are doing in their lives that get in the way of trying to provide the formulae you suggest would be more helpful. The OP already did some heavy lifting to start this discussion. </p>

<p>If you have some interesting statistical evaluation to add to the discussion in the form of revised tables, feel free to provide them. If not, that’s OK . . . but no denigrating others for likewise declining.</p>

<p>Kei</p>

36

<p>

</p>

<p>Pomona</p>

<p>Male AR - 20.3%
Female AR - 12.7%</p>

<p>Differential AR - 7.6%</p>

<p>I believe the 60% is Differential AR/Female AR = 60%.
This is partly why I didn’t care for Pomona.</p>

37

<p>at the risk of being taken to task for my horrendous lack of math skills, I am going to admit to being confused by this</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Why is the overall admit rate lower than both male and female rates? Am I missing something very obvious?</p>

38

<p>^ Maybe because I mixed up my sources. I can’t remember if I used CB for the overall admit rate b/c I was too lazy to calculate it by hand… quite possibly.</p>

39

<p>

The same absolute difference can seem very significant or quite insignificant, depending on the magnitude of the numbers involved.</p>

<p>Suppose you are starting college and are shopping for a laptop in the college bookstore. You find two attractive models, priced at $749 and $759. You probably aren’t going to be terribly concerned about the $10 price difference; instead, you would likely perceive the prices as essentially equivalent. </p>

<p>Now suppose that as you are standing in the checkout line with your laptop, you realize that you will need to go straight to class, and that you need a pen. The checkout counter has a bin of cheap ballpoints for $1 each, and also fancy fountain pens for $11 each. In this case, a $10 difference – the exact same absolute differential – probably looms much larger than it did with the laptops. </p>

<p>So intuitively, the same $10 absolute differential seems insignificant for a laptop, but quite significant for a pen. If you express the difference in relative terms, this becomes evident. The pricier laptop costs only 1.3% more than the cheaper laptop, but the pricier pen costs 1,000% more than the cheaper pen.</p>

<hr>

<p>Now consider colleges in the same light. Suppose your safety school has an 80% acceptance rate for women and a 90% acceptance rate for men. That’s a 10% differential in absolute terms, but it probably won’t trouble you, since the odds of getting in are very high regardless. </p>

<p>Now suppose your dream LAC has a 10% acceptance rate for women and a 20% acceptance rate for men. That’s the same 10% differential in absolute terms. But at the LAC, it’s more troubling, since the odds of getting in are low to begin with. Furthermore, that 10% differential means that a random male applicant’s chances are twice as good as yours (since 20% is twice as large as 10%). This is not the case at the safety school; 90% is higher than 80%, but it’s obviously not twice as high. </p>

<p>In relative terms, the same 10% absolute differential would appear quite different at the two schools. At the safety school, the male acceptance rate is only 12.5% higher than the female rate. At the LAC, the male acceptance rate is 100% higher (or twice) the female rate.</p>

40

<p>The secret formula for calculating the percent difference is as follows. This assumes that you want to know how much higher (or lower) the male acceptance rate (M) is, relative to the female rate (F):</p>

<p>(M / F * 100) – 100</p>

<p>So at Pomona, (20.3 / 12.7 * 100) – 100 = 59.8 %
Or at Skidmore, (34.7 / 27.3 * 100) – 100 = 27.1 %</p>

<p>The absolute differentials are nearly identical (7.6 vs. 7.4), but this is more significant at Pomona, where the acceptance rates are lower overall. I posted an incorrect Skidmore number in Post 4 above, but it doesn’t change the conclusion. If the male acceptance rate is lower for a particular school, then the calculated result will be negative. </p>

<p>You can also calculate the percent difference as per Post 36</p>